She left me. *sob*! She packed up and moved to Cuernavaca!
My muse got all offended when I took a break from fiction writing back in April to work on my Angel episode analyses and it’s been two months now and…
I.Can’t.Write!!!
Oh, I can write LJ entries and comments, and I managed in extremely painful fashion to put together a wretchedly pathetic personal ad, but fiction is escaping me. I can’t work on my novel for longer than 15 minutes before I abandon it. And the little femslash pr0n I’ve been trying to write for the cracktrailer is just the uber!suck, and not in the fun way. And here I thought it would be just the thing to provide me some frothy, no-stress wordsmithing. And entertainment.
I’m hoping the Season 6 fic will kick me into gear, ’cause summer is always my writing marathon season, and this year… *sob*!!
Plus, I have a pulled muscle or something in my shoulder that gives me stabbing pains every time I take a deep breath. I hate that! I think I slept on it wrong.
Tossing and turning and pining for my lost muse….
Please, can any one think of something that will inspire me??
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 
Poor Masq! There’s an article in the New Yorker this week about the history of writer’s block. I don’t think it would be particularly helpful in getting over it but it proves that you’re topical.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040614fa_fact
That’s a really good article. The artist always feels as if their work comes, not from their own mind or will or brain, but from “another place”. It’s not something they control, it comes on its own. My best writing always pops into my head when I’m in the shower, or driving, or falling asleep, never when I’m at the computer or sitting with a pen in my hand.
My muse has always been a trickster that way.
But I miss her!
Oh dear.
At first I thought you were talking about your girlfriend or something and I was already getting into my comfort giving mode.
But then again a muse leaving you is no better, I’m supposed to write an essay for lit. at the moment, and let me tell you, when muses hear ‘finale grade’ they run off as fast as me at a beginning of a relationship. *sigh*
Try to do some fic challenges, they’re good at tempting runaway muses.
Oh your icon! 🙂
Very true, but I was surprised when I got a job writing (granted it’s just blurby copy stuff) that the day to day work actually helped my “real writing”. Getting used to having to sit down and produce something on demand made me feel a bit more confident that stuff would come if I kept working, and helped me tell the difference between those times when my brain really is empty and needs to do something else or I’m just being lazy. I’m sure I’m jinxing myself horribly with all this… but craft is the only way to pretend have some sort of control over the hard-to-grasp inspiration.
Hemingway’s never a good person to take advice from but I liked his idea that one should end a writing session knowing what comes next so that when you sit down to it again you know where to start.
It would have to be a pretty *good* fic challenge, because I don’t write fan-fic. That cracktrailer fic would have been my first solo fan-fic attempt.
Re: Have a little Faith that your muse will return!
She will slay your writer’s block!
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
The reason this writer’s block is so devastating to me, is I *never* suffer serious writer’s block. For eleven years now, I have been addicted to the writing process, and waste away entire weekends and evenings day after day, week after week writing. My social life suffers for it, but I have always had a wonderful, joyful regular writing practice. I take a month or two off every now and then to relax or do lif-stuff, but have never had a lot of trouble getting back into it when the vaca was over.
This is new. Different. Scary.
And I almost fear it’s my brain sending me a message to not be so single-minded and do *something else* besides writing all the time.
Connor and Angel are my boys *g*
But not in a slashy way. ; )
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
Your s6 project sounds like the perfect thing then – it’s communal and completely different from a novel. Plus you’re excited about it. Your muse will think you’re moving on with your life and come crawling back.
Re: Thanks Ann!
Hmmmm…. you know that cracktrailer fic had Eliza in it, but maybe Eliza isn’t Faith-y enough to do the trick.
Maybe it’s gotta be Faith herself.
Oh, who am I kidding, I’m not a fan-fic writer. At least not flying solo.
I miss my original characters from my novel. Look! They’re over there yelling, “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah” at me and blowing raspberries.
Maybe I’ll kill one of them off. Mmmmm.
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
Now I just have to convince the Season-6ers to get crackin’ with the writing and stop planning the story endlessly. It’s like a fun hypothetical discussion board community over there right now.
Do you suppose we *all* have writer’s block? Yikes!
Your muse will think you’re moving on with your life and come crawling back.
Now imagining her crawling on her hands and knees begging me for forgiveness. *very pleasant*
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
Now imagining her crawling on her hands and knees begging me for forgiveness. *very pleasant*
For some reason now I’m thinking that you have a very clear mental picture of your muse.
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
Well, she looks like the main character of my novel. Sort of a Native American Faith.
Re: Out for blood!
Definately kill one of them off. Even if it doesn’t “take” it will at least get the characters talking to you again – reacting to the unfairness of it. When I hit my worst bouts of writer’s block I just stop at whatever point in the story I’m at and ask “what’s the worst possible thing I could do to these characters right now?” (So does ME apaprently)
Abuse your characters enough and they’ll fight back to regain control of their lives.
Sometimes, I also ask myself which novel/story/plot my story is most reminding me of and revisit it to see how that author got past this point in the story. Usually, it opens up ideas I hadn’t considered.
Last tip that works for me – take your character and throw them into an entirely new story. I’ve been doing that lately with my own novel – I’ve written a scene that’ll never appear in the official manuscript where a main character reunites with his family after 10 years. It reminded me what his biggest fears were and how he might have to confront them through the plot.
When all else fails – try drinking! 🙂
Re: Out for blood!
Yeah, I’m not sure what’s going to work in the case of my novel, because I’m into the 5th draft, that is, doing the prettying-up/editing parts of it in hopes of sending it to an agent in the next year. So the story is already essentially written, the characters already know who they are and where they are, or rather, *I know*.
It’s not a case of boredom, either, as you might suspect with something I’ve been working on for a while with this. I still feel a lot of energy around these characters and the themes I’m writing about.
I just… I think it’s time to step away from it for a bit and experience this wacky thing called *life*. I have the Season 6 fic to keep my fingers to keyboard, and give me a writing project to manage (I always write *big* things, I could never do a short story, I have to throw myself into projects).
Oh, and drinking and writing do *not* mix for me. I’ve tried it. I drink when it’s time to play, but when I need to concentrate, no alcy for me.
I’m sure my characters will be waiting for me when I get back from walking on the beach or getting laid or whatever I decide to go out and do this summer.
She’s probably soaking up the sun…
at the same resort mine went too, when I was spending way too much
time writing essays on a certain tv show. For some reason this pisses off muses. They are cranky creatures – and don’t like to be ignored.
At any rate if you ever locate yours could you get her to send a message to mine? “I’ve stopped writing Buffy/Angel essays now – and promise never ever write another one again. So sorry I neglected you, mean nasty writer that I am. You can come back now. Please? I have chocolate?”
Re: She’s probably soaking up the sun…
“At any rate if you ever locate yours could you get her to send a message to mine? “I’ve stopped writing Buffy/Angel essays now – and promise never ever write another one again. So sorry I neglected you, mean nasty writer that I am. You can come back now. Please? I have chocolate?”
Are you REALLY not writing another Buffy/Angel essay? ‘Cause I can’t make that promise to my muse. I have the Season 6 fic, I have a Connor essay I’m supposed to write for ‘s site, and I was going to do Angel ep reviews in my LJ this summer.
My muse has never had a problem with my Buffy/Angel writing before. They went hand-in-hand for five years. As did my muse and the Fanged Four Fic.
Grrrrr.
Re: Out for blood!
Hmm. Sounds like the beach thing is the way to go, then. Maybe your muse is already sipping down a pina colada and waiting for you to catch up.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve screwed up a story at this stage because I’ve tried to force the rewriting and making it pretty. Have you tried reading it aloud and noting the passages that sound wrong?
Re: She’s probably soaking up the sun…
Are you REALLY not writing another Buffy/Angel essay?
Yep. I’m completely done with the B/A essays. I think they were getting in the way of my fiction muse, who took off just as I began writing them (which was after I finished the last revision of my novel in 2002). Now that I’m gearing up to revise the novel again, got hold of someone who enjoys editing to help me get rid of some of the more self-idulgent bits, I really need the original muse back.
Of course hunting for and worrying about employment might have also had a hand in it. For some reason I can’t write well creatively when I’m hunting work at the same time…which is annoying, because I have more time to write creatively when I’m hunting work. Ugh. Muses.
Re: Out for blood!
Have you tried reading it aloud and noting the passages that sound wrong?
My re-writing process doesn’t quite work that way–I mean, it could use that technique, but it’s better used when you have a complete whole to work with, which I don’t.
Let me explain that. I have a whole novel, four drafts of it. But the 5th draft is incomplete in a very odd way.
I re-write from the ground up, organically, or some metaphor like that. While the original draft was chronological order, don’t-know-what-happens-next discovery let-the-characters-write-it fun, this latest draft is being edited/fixed up by concentrating on specific elements of the novel.
So first, I just worked on dialogue, then, I added and concentrated on action sequences. Then, description (I’m currently stalled out in description), then I would work on character’s inner thoughts, and finally emotional description.
This has proven to be a great way to do it, because I can put aside certain worries and concentrate on others. And I’m essentially re-building my novel the way you might build a person or a building–first skeleton, then muscles, then internal organs, then skin.
I just burned myself out, I think, in April, with the sheer amount of time I was spending on it.
Re: She’s probably soaking up the sun…
I think you’ve hit on a key point here. Back in April when I set the novel aside, it was with the plan of picking it up in June and giving it my total attention–no more ATPo analyses to write anymore, the board would be less busy, and I would start writing more about my fiction-writing process in LJ.
But that’s not what happened. As “Angel’s” end drew near, I was not ready to let it go, so I started the Season 6 project, which I’m now managing, and it’s a lot of work. I want to keep doing little things to the ATPo site to keep people coming back to it now that there are no shows on the air. And I want to keep the board going. I even flirted with reading (and writing solo) fan fic for the first time this month, which I’ve *never* done before, ever (except fangedfour).
I think my muse has seen I’m not coming around to give her my total attention, and she’s offended. Fan geekdom has become even stronger with the end of Angel than weaker.
I need to remind myself that my life, my center of gravity, is not fandom, but original fiction. But that’s got to come back to me naturally, not by being forced.
But I think you’re right-on in that assessment. The kinds of projects you and I do in fandom take energy away from creative writing.
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
I think I just lost my train of thought.
Never mind; feel better (muse come home soon or something.)
Re: Um… well, here’s the deal
She’s partying with ‘s muse in Cuernavaca…